EXECUTIVE EDITOR--AUTOWEEK.COM BOB GRITZINGER: I am not terribly enamored with this version of the Z, though it's hard to argue with the car's subtle smokey appearance. I also really like the little touches, such as the way the side marker Z badge blinks when you lock the doors. Nice.

What I don't like is the car's harsh powertrain, which was an asset when the car first came out, but now seems like an anachronism. Nissan doesn't have a smoother engine and tranny it can insert into this car? It just seems really mechanical and harsh. It all does the job, and the SynchroRev Match setup is slick and works well, but I'd like a little more refinement in my $40,000 sports car. Maybe Nissan should have focused some of its energy on refining the 3.5-liter instead of just boring the thing out to a new displacement.

In contrast, the rough edges have been smoothed out elsewhere, in places such as the interior, where leather appointments cover nearly every important surface, including the formerly balky plastic center-console hatch. I really like the use of little LED lights to indicate fuel load and temperature, using small horizontal spaces for that information to avoid cluttering up the speedo and tach.

I like the Z, but it seems Nissan owes more in a 40th Anniversary Edition than just some paint and trim.

MOTORSPORTS EDITOR MAC MORRISON: Goodness, Gritzinger, what on Earth would make you think an anniversary edition would be anything more than paint and trim?

This type of package is, unfortunately, the standard "special edition" MO of most car companies these days. I'd be far more surprised if this 370Z turned up actually boasting a host of true performance upgrades. That would, you know, make too much sense.

The trimmings here are nice, and I like the red seats and door inserts, though they might be too garish for some. Personally, I'm not too thrilled with the LED fuel gauge. It looks cool, but a conventional gauge makes me a little more comfortable because it gives a better sense of exactly how much fuel remains. Then again, I'm not saying I think I would ever accidentally run out of gas because of this avant-garde design, so perhaps I shouldn't criticize it. But it's a mental thing for me.

When it comes to the stuff that truly matters, however, I'm a bit torn over this latest Z car. I was a big fan of the original 350Z, and I probably drove our long-term test car more than anyone. Yet a few things came to annoy me by the end of that year, and I think I'd feel the same way after significant time with this car. This engine just feels too unrefined, and the whole car is loud. Those traits are welcome in some sports cars, and I welcome them to a degree here as well, but with this Nissan, you also start to feel like all the rumbling and roaring amounts to more show than actual go. The car is certainly quick but doesn't feel as forceful as you might expect.

The shifter's action is also the same as always: notchy and requiring a decent amount of effort to slot shifts home. Its movements are relatively slow, which I dislike. While the S-mode SynchroRev Match is a unique feature that will make life easier--and driving the car a lot more fun--for many people, it bothers me that it allows someone to drive well without having to put in the time to learn or practice the skill of proper downshifting. I'm not suggesting that people need to be licensed racers to qualify for purchasing a road car, but I wish more would like to try and learn to drive well.

You can, thankfully, turn off S-mode if you want to do the work yourself. But the ongoing implementation of such systems speaks to a broader issue: the dumbing down of drivers and cars. In a real-world, sales-floor sense, I can't blame Nissan for offering what is in effect a cheater's way to heel-and-toe downshift. It is a cool feature that opens up a performance window otherwise closed to average drivers.

At the same time, though, I continue to wonder what's next. How about a manual transmission with systems such as antistall (we already have the hill-holder clutch in many cars, which I welcome) and some sort of computer control that makes it impossible for anyone to make lurching upshifts? Wouldn't that go along nicely with the now-available perfect downshifts? Then, when a potential customer says to a salesman, "I really love this car, but I can't drive a stick," the salesman can reply, "Oh no, don't worry. You don't have to know how to drive a stick to drive this stick. Sure, you press the clutch pedal and move the shifter around, but in reality, you aren't doing anything. The car does it all for you!"

At the rate these things are developing, I don't think this is a pipe dream. And that depresses me. We already have sports-car companies, even Ferrari, dropping manual gearboxes from their lineups in favor of paddle-shift hardware. So I like to dream that the relatively few cars that still feature true manuals would . . . feature true manuals. Otherwise, if you slowly remove the actions and skills that made driving fun for all these years--for enthusiasts, anyway--what are you left with? Maybe at a staggering 33 years old, I'm just too out of touch with what constitutes fun. Maybe the new generation is too busy doing other things behind the wheel to care about or bother with trivial tasks like shifting gears. And that's what scares me.

Regardless, this 370 is still a lot of fun to drive hard and fast. It has very good brakes and very good brake-pedal feel. The steering makes it easy to put the car where you want it, and this Z remains a throttle-steering ball of enjoyment. It's far from perfect, but I still look forward to driving it when the opportunity arises. I just wish it would have evolved a little more than it has over the past seven years or so.

ASSOCIATE EDITOR JONATHAN WONG: Yep, nothing like a special paint job, specific interior color scheme and special badges to celebrate 40 years of the Z car. More power and maybe sharper handling would be a more fitting celebration, but that would be asking too much. At least we've still got the Nismo version if we want improved performance.

But getting back to this car, I do like the graphite paint job and the smoked Ray's wheels. As previously mentioned, the interior on the 370Z is a giant leap forward compared with that of the 350Z, with nice soft-touch surfaces throughout and small premium details such as the stitching on the center stack.

I can't really defend the 370Z's rough-sounding V6 besides saying that it is big on power and throttle response. Also, it's a sports car, for crying out loud! There's nothing wrong with a little bit of engine noise, right? Shifts from the manual are good for a Nissan product and the SynchroRev Match system works beautifully. Yes, I agree with Mac that it's a little sad when the system will make any yokel look like a heel-and-toe downshifting fiend, but so is the declining availability of cars with manual transmissions in general.

The car feels much lighter on its feet than its predecessor and is easily rotated around corners using the throttle, which is always fun. Ride quality is a little stiff but manageable for daily use and it returns good grip in corners. The steering has a nice weight to it and fairly good response. Overall, it's a solid sports car which wouldn't be a half-bad consolation prize if you can't afford a GT-R.

As a big Japanese car fan, I would still take the Mazda RX-8 over this. Yes, even with the oil-consuming rotary engine and low torque. That car's chassis is one of the best on the market in my opinion and remains one of the purist performance cars out there.